£290 worthwhile upgrade??

[Zephyrus]

I have a budget of £290 left for another upgrade. but i cant for the life of me think if there is anything worthwhile getting that i will see a dramatic increase over what i already have. I have a 19" TFT on its way which will be played at 1280x1024 which i already play on my current CRT with high settings on BF2 etc so a graphics card upgrade wont see much of a boost ( i had another thread in the g/card section asking this). I thought possibly another DFI m/board for increased OC'ing but i cant really see that providing me with any negligable gaming performance. I'm wondering whether i'm just looking at spending money for the sake of it and not see anything for it.
Any thoughts on this guys? Specs in Sig.

Cheers,
Zeph.

 

[Zephyrus]

Lol hey n3x. The x850xt doesnt seem to have any problems at all on high settings, the 3dmark score is a fair bit lower than the 7800's but i dont go by that too much as for all they score higher do they actually perform significantly better when gaming... probably not.
Oh well looks like i'd probably be best taking the advice and waiting for the next round of new hardware to hit the shelves

Zeph.

 

[Zephyrus]

I would save up a little more and get a X1900XT. Whilst the current games are running well for you, this card will give you a long term boost as well as supporting a lot more graphics capabilities ( like SM3).

When you say long term boost, u mean more future proof yeah? For that aspect i'd be better waiting till my card suffers a hit from a new game then upgrade to one of them as the prices will probably be a lot cheaper. Although that time could come pretty soon depending on how Oblivion plays on my machine when its released.

SM3 i don't know too much about, what sort of benefits does having that capability give?

Cheers,
Zeph.

 

[Zephyrus]

Lol my opty 144 is priming right now at 2.8Ghz just now so its lookin' good for already having an FX57 equivelent

 

[Zephyrus]

Lol your really pushing the opty 170 aint ya Monster
If i knew that the x1900xt would have a noticable improvement over what i have i would prolly sell the x850xt and get one.
Has anyone made the jump from x850xt to x1900xt?

Also wondering how loud the 1900xt's fan is. I have a zalman on my current card as the stock one was way too noisy.

 

[Zephyrus]

One x1900xt on its way to me. All i can say is this card better last me till DX10.
Oh, and the Mrs is gonna kill me
Although still looking for that £290 upgrade as its in paypal atm and the g/card went on the cc